Comments on: Review – Infrant ReadyNAS NV+

By: network23

network23 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:22:11 +0000

Steven,

I believe they did, and still do, repair their own units. Being a subsidy of NetGear though, sometimes NetGear support doesn’t have the info to know to forward customers to them. Hopefully they’ll be able to help Drew out.

By: network23

network23 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:19:36 +0000

Drew,
It’s not an excuse, but I regularly see stories like this on the Infrant site — lots of times, Netgear drops the ball in terms of support and they fail to forward the customer to Infrant, who in every case I can remember, have been able to help out.

Please visit Infrant’s forums and post your dilemma there. I would suggest either in the Feedback forum or one of the forums under Support. They really are very nice and I believe they will do what they can to help you out.

By: Steven Vance

Steven Vance — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:16:48 +0000

What did Infrant do for out-of-warranty boxes before the company was purchased by/sold to Netgear?

By: Drew M

Drew M — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:16:12 +0000

We use 2 3Tb ReadyNAS NV servers at my work. Good luck if one of them goes bad after the warranty expires. Here’s a copy of a tech support email I just received:

[quote]
12/2/2008 1:53:00 AM
Dear Drew,

I understand you have a Ready NAS device that does not power up and is out of warranty. At the present time we do not have a facility that accepts devices for repair from customers. I would advise looking online or locally for a company that may be able to repair NETGEAR Ready NAS devices.

I apologize we could not be of any assistance.

Please have a wonderful day!

Warmest Regards,

Brandon
NETGEAR Customer Care

[/quote]

By: Mark D

Mark D — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 06:12:44 +0000

I have been using the ReadyNAS NV+ for over a year now and highly recommend the Unit. I work in IT and have tried various other units. The ReadyNAS NV+ in my view is the best by a long shot & would be my Pick. I have upgraded the Firmware & Software problem free. I have also installed 2 Printers sucessfully. There are faster units out there for File Transfer across the Gigabyte networks so if Transfer Speed is critical then maybe shop around. There is also great Support Groups & Forums out there that will answer all your queries. Overall I give the ReadyNAS NV+ 9 Out of 10.

By: Tim Koltek - Rusty Bytes

Tim Koltek - Rusty Bytes — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:24:31 +0000

I love the ReadyNAS – though there are a few things that would make it better.

The backup app has lots of options from using a usb drive to an ftp site, but it doesn’t appear to have differential backup or the ability to compress then upload. Uploading every file every backup on a TB drive doesn’t make sense.

It would also be great if it supported OTHER Bit Torrent clients as the included is very limited.

By: Stan Berry

Stan Berry — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:54:31 +0000

Based partly on your review I recently purchased a ReadyNAS NV+, already populated with 2 500GB Seagate drives. It came with RAIDiator (their customized Linux operating system) version 3. Version 4 was available when I ordered mine.

1) the included backup doesn’t work. Details available if you’re interested.
2) the printer support doesn’t work. Details available if you’re interested.
3) upgrading (to version 4) doesn’t work … trying it left the ReadyNAS NV+ crippled … it took me a day of research and about 6 hours’ work to restore the ReadyNAS NV+ to the state in which it had been received. All data was lost in the process (I had backed it up before I started). Details available if you’re interested.

I’m left with a NAS box (a fairly fast NAS box … if attached to a NetGear gigabit switch) that cost me $300 more than market for a TB. I would tell anyone considering adding a NAS box to their network to steer clear of ReadyNAS NV+.

By: Steven Vance

Steven Vance — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:18:46 +0000

@Mark:

You are getting your hard drive technologies confused.

ATA and Ultra ATA are now renamed PATA (P for Parallel). All drives of this type are incompatible with SATA (S for Serial).

Therefore, depending on what interface your drive actually uses (you need to figure this out), you may or may not use the drive in the ReadyNAS. If the drive is SATA, then you can. If the drive is ATA/UltraATA/PATA (all the same thing, remember), then you cannot.

However, any drive you put into the ReadyNAS will be erased and reformatted.

Does that answer your question?

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:59:21 +0000

back to the original review – i also use slimserver with 12k or more flac music files on an internal 750Gb sata ultra ata-100 seagate drive. a 2nd drive – same specs – also resides in the pc system. question: can these two drives be made part of the readynas nv+ setup? will it benefit from the speed of ultra ata-100’s capabilities? if i add two more hd’s down the line – can they be of larger capacity than the current drives? also is it possible to expand to two readynas nv+’s when the need arises?

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 07:50:59 +0000

This server is great. I’ve had it for a few years now and it has been performing without a hitch. I haven’t had a hard drive fail on me yet, but it would be interesting to see how it handles the failure when it does. The iTunes server also works well — all you have to do is point the server to your music directory and it shows it in the iTunes library.

By: Glen Dahl

Glen Dahl — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:08:15 +0000

My experience was little different. I tried to setup the readynas but changing the ip address seemed to fail. I lost connection (as one would expect when changing the ip address) but could not regain connection. I restarted it and it came up with the dhcp address on it. I tried again. Same thing. So I attempted to take it back to factory defaults. Then it didn’t find the dhcp server. I tried the factory reset again. Panic:kernel. Yikes. Tried their forum. Every question got the same list of posts. Tried email support. Needed a registration. No way to register. Tried phone support. Thick accent. Trouble communicating. He would not help me without a registration. I told him I would not register if it did not work. He just kept askiing me to register.
I sent it back.

By: Travis

Travis — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:31:01 +0000

network23, thanks for the explanation on iTunes. How do you manage the iTunes library, playlist, added songs, etc since you can’t do that from a share? Do you setup the NAS as a drive letter on one machine and then have that one machine treating the NAS as the physical storage for the iTunes running on that machine? Do you have to do something special to tell iTunes where to store the iTunes library file? Are there any sharing issues while the modifying machine is changing things and the NAS server is also accessing the library files? Does the NAS box count as a different authorization vs. the computer managing the playlists?

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[...] have to say, the temptation to put 4 of them in a ReadyNAS is strong but I think a reality check is in order – a 4TB RAID array? Even I’d have problems [...]

By: network23

network23 — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 20:54:55 +0000

I have an NV+ and love it! I use the iTunes streaming feature as well. It acts just like when you share your library to others on your network, those libraries or playlists show up in their own submenu in iTunes and others can listen to your songs. But, just like iTunes sharing, they can’t copy the songs to their libraries or burn CDs with those songs. Essentially, what you do is move your iTunes library out to the NAS. One, your local drive is not loaded with your songs and videos, giving you much more drive space locally. Two, sharing doesn’t require that you stay logged in and have iTunes running (like you have to if you share from iTunes). Your computer can be off and the NAS will happily share away. Three, since your library is on the NAS, it’s protected from drive failure. Not a catastrophic failure, like a fire or something, but if one drive fails in the NAS, you won’t be kissing your valuable tunes and vids goodbye.

I’ve even taken it one step further, and moved all the iTunes content to a shared directory that everyone has access to. Then I really don’t need NAS’s server, everyone just points iTunes to the network drive. Pretty easy to set up for the most part.

By: Marc

Marc — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:10:11 +0000

Doug, as far as I can tell iTunes has the capability to stream audio/video over a network to iTunes clients. I don’t know how this works in detail because I don’t use the system but it looks like OSX has an iTunes client that can playback the media over the network.

The readyNAS will basically replace iTunes in that system, making your media collection look like an iTunes server to any iTunes clients on the LAN.

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By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:51:13 +0000

iTunes Server? Please Explain…

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:27:52 +0000

iTunes server on the ReadyNAS NV+? Infrant’s site does not mention this… please tell us more!

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:49:41 +0000

I should also have added (just to make it clear) that I was reviewing the NV+ but the LCD is hidden behind the mirrored finish and only shows up when the unit is powered up, which is why it doesn’t show on my photos…

By: Marc

Marc — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:46:23 +0000

The NV+ is the direct replacement and the main difference is the addition of an LCD display on the bottom of the unit. It shows the current IP address and various statuses while booting – useful but not essential.

The NV+ also has a new fanless PSU which helps bring the noise levels down – how important that is to you depends on where you’re putting it The same PSU was also fitted to later revisions of the NV so I’d expect the ones on the shelves now to have that (worth checking if you can).

I’d say if the LCD and PSU aren’t important to you and you can find an NV for cheaper than an NV+ then grab it while they’re still around!